Antonia

I have been thinking a lot lately, about how wonderful it is, to be a woman, especially in a society like ours. It is tough, it needs a great effort and resistance, it is too tiring sometimes, and yet, all these are also those that make it a unique kind of struggle, that make it powerful, that make it worth, to stand up and go on, when you stumble and fall. I, am discovering my power as a fighting woman. And so did Willeke van Ammelrooy's Antonia and her family line of four generations, mainly consisting of daughters after daughters.


Antonia's Line, or Antonia's Line for English-speaking world, is a 1995 Dutch movie by director and writer Marleen Gorris, about a close-knit matriarchal community, with Antonia as the head of the family. The matronal Antonia goes back to the Dutch village she was born, with her daughter Danielle, after the World War II. It is a town where women are silent outside but torn inside, and where men are loud and mostly dull, with a false perception as they are the owner of everything, including, women. Antonia takes over the family farm, and starts building her life again with the help of her daughter. They visit her close friend Kromme Vinger (Crooked Finger) regularly; Kromme Vinger never goes out of his home where he is surrounded by thousands of books, and is philosophically depressed because of mankind's cruelty, ignorance and the on-going suffer and pain, known as life; Danielle saves a neighbour's retarded daughter after witnessing that her brother has been raping her and takes her in; Antonia refuses the marriage proposal of another neighbour who is simply seeking for a mother for his five children, finding that too overwhelming, and instead offers him a nice breakfast table for him and his five boys, every sunday morning, which would be, in years, a long long table, where everyone around it is simply happy, looking for good in each one, and not criticizing anyone. The next generation starts when Danielle, who receives art education and becomes a painter thanks to her open-minded mother Antonia, decides to have a baby, without the need of a husband and eventually she gives birth to a daughter, named Thérèse, who happens to become a genius. An affection grows between Danielle and Thérèse's teacher, forming a new couple while the movie covers yet another topic, lesbianism. And so the generations are formed each after another, as new couples are formed, and all new additions to Antonia's line are again and again, daughters.


Antonia won the 1996 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award and the Netherlands Film Festival Golden Calf Award. But the most important award is the movie itself, to the patriarchal society of today. In the beginning of the movie, when Antonia and Danielle arrive in the village, they see a sign on a wall, "Welcome to our Liberators!", and one would like to think that about the two women, although it is intended for American troops, for Antonia is the one that brings the real humanity and love that the village lacks, and the movie shows how the society could be, in the hands of women, which brings hope to our hearts, although some may call it a feminist fairy tale. All the characters, including the side characters, from Olga the cafe owner to Mad Madonna howling at the full moon for she cannot marry her protestant lover as a Catholic, are highly detailed and extremely impressive and unique.

And so, just as the warm and long breakfast tables of Antonia, the movie welcomes you with all its sincerity as a celebration of love, life and hope. There are for sure dark moments, as in real life, such as the rape of Thérèse by the son of the neighbour, however, he does receive what he deserves. One can not wish for nothing but one loving, understanding and also strong parent such as Antonia, instead of a distant, over-protective father who would not comprehend you deeply. The fact that every new generation of women in the family has yet another talent develops another admiration for them; Danielle is a painter, the genius Thérèse is a composer and mathematician and her daughter Sarah is a writer, whom we find, in the end, that is the narrator. Their talents which are the ways that they perceive life, are best stated in the last scenes, while Antonia is about to die, and Sarah, one by one, describe each one's later expression of such a great and important moment.

There are tons of movies that would fill you with hope and love for sure, however this one seems to give you the strongest one, especially making you proud of who you are, when you see it, as a woman. I have written above, I love, just love, to be a woman, for I am a fighter.